“If you don’t understand it, you’ve never had a pet”: the debate a priest sparked by saying animals aren’t worth more than a human…
Father Jorge Vargas, a Uruguayan priest with nearly 190 thousand followers on TikTok, calmly answered a simple question: Is it wrong to love my pet? His answer was yes.
“Animals are animals. Let’s not humanize animals. Please, this can be a problem”, he said.
He said that a friend claimed to love her pet more than any human being, and that, to him, was going too far: a disordered love.
He clarified that it’s okay to grieve a pet’s death and mourn for a while, because they are companions, but that we should never let that affection become disordered.
He ended by asking people to love, respect, and protect them, but “not at the expense of humanity”.
The controversy wasn’t about his tone, but about the comments. Some replied that they had humanized all their pets and always would.
Others agreed with him. On the side of those defending him: loving an animal shouldn’t compete with loving a person. On the side of those criticizing him: for many, their pet is family, and no one should tell them how to love.
Can a dog be part of the family, or is there a line that shouldn’t be crossed?